Deadly Design (9780698173613) Page 21

  I don’t remember watching her leave. I don’t remember eating dinner or sitting on the sofa with my parents and none of us saying anything and none of us touching the envelope that contains information about freezing a human being. I don’t remember anything except wishing things were different and wishing the chill in my gut would go away.

  We didn’t discuss it. We didn’t need to. The decision was made, because the only other choice is not an option, not to my parents anyway. Now I have to figure out how to tell Cami.

  41

  I turn on the heater in Cami’s truck. She’s already complained about being hot. It’s mid-September, and while the evening air may be considered refreshing to many, to me it’s cold. I can’t stop feeling cold.

  Cami takes the piece of paper she’s just finished reading and starts to refold it, but stops. She looks over at me. “I’ll wait for you,” she says. “No matter how long it takes.” She grabs my hand and tries to smile. “This is good.”

  She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself as much as me.

  “This is good,” she says again. “We can have a future.”

  “What if it’s ten years from now?”

  “I’ll be twenty-eight,” Cami gasps.

  “And I’ll still be almost seventeen.” I start to say more, because I want her to know everything, but I stop myself. If she’s worried about being ten years older, how will she feel when she’s forty or fifty, and people mistake me for her son because the longevity sequence has kicked in and I’m not aging? I shiver.

  Cami’s arms slip around my waist. “It’s going to work,” she says. “And I don’t mind if people think I’m a cougar, going after a younger man. They’ll just be jealous because you’re mine.”

  “I’ll always be yours,” I say, trying to blink away the stinging in my eyes. “Promise me you’ll stay mine. Promise me you won’t freak out when you get your first gray hair and I’m . . .”

  She lifts her face and kisses me.

  The warmth of her does ten times more good than the truck’s heater. “I just want you to be happy,” I say. “And if something goes wrong . . .”

  Cami presses a finger over my mouth.

  I take her hand and hold it tightly. “If something goes wrong, I don’t want you to waste time being sad. I mean, really— nanorobots smaller than the eyes can see are going to go around fixing my DNA? I know Dr. Bartholomew swears she can do this, but what if she can’t?”

  “She can,” Cami says. “You’ll be cured, and we can be together. But you can’t complain if I get a few gray hairs or a few wrinkles before you do.”

  I study her face. I want to memorize it, and if my brain is frozen thinking about one thing, holding on to one memory, I want it to be this. I want to see Cami’s eyes, her hair, and her smile. Freeze me with that stuck like a screen saver in my brain, and I won’t care how long it takes. And when I wake up, let her be there. Please let her be there.

  42

  How do you go to sleep when you know that tomorrow your heart is going to stop beating? That you are, for all intents and purposes, going to die? How do you close your eyes and let the thing you desire most in this world—time—tiptoe past you?

  Have you ever been so scared, so overwhelmed with emotions that you could feel your heart, your soul, doubling over inside of you? You feel like . . . like you just want to escape, but you know you can’t.

  They said it wouldn’t be like dying. My heart wasn’t going to suddenly stop. It would slow down gradually while I slept, while my body was cooled. Eventually everything would start to solidify until my heart, my lungs, my brain, were rendered motionless. In the letter I wrote to Cami, the one she read in the truck because I was too chickenshit to say everything myself, I left out the part about the holes in my skull the doctors will drill so they can monitor my brain responses. A healthy brain supposedly contracts under the process, while a damaged brain expands. Negative 196 degrees Celsius is negative 320.8 degrees Fahrenheit: 353 degrees below freezing. I Googled it, but I wish I hadn’t. I can’t imagine anything being that cold.

  It’s as incomprehensible as the universe, and it’s going to happen to me.

  My stomach growls. I’m not really hungry. Mom made my favorite dinner. Actually it was more like my favorite dinners and to hell with eating healthy. We ordered in pizza—pepperoni with stuffed crust, plus Mom made fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy. We topped it off with cake and ice cream. No one said happy birthday, but with mine being three and a half months away, it kind of felt like we should have, especially since we know I won’t be home for my birthday.

  Hours ago, I felt sick from eating too much. Now my stomach calls out to me. It’s not because it’s empty; it’s because it knows it will never be fed again—at least not for two to ten years. It’s the old “no food after midnight” rule. They’re using anesthesia to put me out, so there’s a risk of choking if anything is in my stomach. If I choke while I’m unconscious, my airways will close up and my brain will be deprived of oxygen. If that happens, I’ll be thawed out and given a pass to ride that special short bus. So, no food.

  In a way, I guess that’s good. I can’t imagine a slice of stuffed crust pizza being frozen in my stomach for two or more years. Talk about freezer burn.

  I roll onto my back, and the mattress shifts around my body. It doesn’t feel right. It feels off somehow, foreign, like this isn’t the bed I’ve slept in since I made my way out of the crib all those years ago. I roll back onto my side, but that doesn’t feel right either. I kick off the covers and start pacing. I pace around my bed, pace back and forth along the wall where my dresser is. Finally, I pace right up the stairs and find myself standing outside my parents’ bedroom. The door is shut, but I can see a light shining dimly from beneath the door. Of course they’re not asleep. How could they be?

  I want to knock. I want to fling open the door and fall into their arms. Tears burn my eyes while I imagine sobbing in their embrace. I want them to tell me that I don’t have to do it because there’s another way. They’ve just discovered it, just seconds ago they had some brilliant realization of how I can be saved another way.

  I can see them; Mom and Dad are sitting on the bed. They’re embracing each other, comforting each other. They’re fighting the urge to slip down the stairs and stare at me in my sleep, except I’m not sleeping. They know that. And to enter my domain would be to open the floodgates to a sea of emotions none of us are strong enough to deal with. So they hold each other. They hold on to their hope.

  I don’t go in.

  I won’t leave them with the memory of me scared and sobbing. I’m going to be strong.

  All I have to do is go to sleep, and the gas they give me will take care of that, so really, I don’t have to do anything. Negative 320.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Don’t think about that. Don’t. Just go to sleep and wake up. And be strong.

  Be strong. Be strong.

  Quietly, I knock my forehead over and over again against the frame around my parents’ door. Be strong, I repeat. Be strong.

  • • •

  My dad’s hand is on my shoulder. “It’s morning, buddy,” he says. “About time to go.”

  “Go where?” I mumble and try to get the kink out of my back. I’m in the hallway. I must have fallen asleep . . . I’m awake.

  One hundred and a thousand percent awake. Time to go, he’d said.

  Dad smiles down at me and offers me his hand. I take it, gripping it tightly. He pulls me to my feet, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. Instead his other hand goes around my shoulder, and he pulls me to him. Mom’s there too, her arms going around me, but we can’t stay like this for long. We know it. We’re on a tightrope of sorts. We can’t make any wrong moves. There’s a schedule, both physical and emotional. Right now, it’s time to be strong. Time to move like robots or zombies, to move without thought, without emotion.


  The emotional part will come later.

  I go downstairs and get dressed, being careful not to look around my room. Either I’ll see it again or I won’t. If I get better and come home and get to sleep in my bed, great. If I don’t, it’s not like I’m going to miss it.

  Cami and my mom are standing in the kitchen when I get upstairs.

  “Here.” Cami comes to me and sticks something in my hand. It’s an iPod. “I made a playlist of all your favorite songs. I thought that you could listen to it . . .”

  “Thanks,” I say, wondering when exactly I’m supposed to listen to it. Before they put me to sleep, I’ll be with my family. Once the sleeping gas hits my lungs, I’ll be too out of it to hear anything. But still, I like the idea, even if I only get to hear a few notes of a favorite song.

  There’s a strange feeling when we step out of the house, like we’re going on vacation and we’re sure we’re forgetting something. We aren’t forgetting anything. And I know my parents are just trying to memorize the feel of me at home. They never got to do that with Connor: never got to stand there and look at their son with the backdrop of the front porch. But they can do it with me. They can try to remember what it was like to be standing here looking at their son.

  “Let’s go to Hawaii,” I blurt out. “We can be like homeless bums on the beach. It’s nice all the time there, warm. We can lie in the sand and watch the waves, and when it happens, you can cremate me and sprinkle my ashes over the water.”

  Actually, I don’t blurt that out. At least, not anywhere but in my head. I want to. I want to go to Hawaii. I want to die where it’s warm, with my toes buried in the sand. But I can’t say it. I can’t.

  I follow them out into the gray morning, and there’s Jimmy leaning up against Cami’s truck. He looks thin. I know he lost weight during his week in the hospital, but even though he’s been out for two weeks, it looks like he’s still losing, like the medications that zapped his appetite are still on duty in his stomach, refusing to let invaders in.

  “Didn’t think I’d let you leave without seeing you off, did you?” Jimmy says. His eyes look glassy but better than they have been, like the ice that’s been coating them is starting to thaw. It looks like he’s attempted to comb his wild hair, and there’s a razor nick on his chin from shaving with an unsteady hand. “This is gonna work,” he says. “And don’t worry; I know this is top-secret shit. I really appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me. Your secret’s safe. I promise.”

  “I know,” I say, and I still can’t believe what he did for me. What he’s still doing for me, because his stay in the hospital isn’t exactly over. It won’t be until the meds have left his system and he’s put back on the weight he lost. And even then, I can’t ever repay him. “You’re my best friend.”

  He smiles, his eyes tearing. “Some crazy shit, though,” Jimmy says. “I mean—fuck! You’re getting frozen. That’s . . . that’s some crazy shit. So crazy it has to work. That’s how missions are. The ones you think will go smooth go to shit, but the ones you think are just too fucked up to work go off without a hitch. This will work, buddy.”

  He extends his hand, and I take it, expecting one of his finger-crushing handshakes, but instead Jimmy pulls me toward him and hugs me.

  “Come home,” he says, slapping my shoulder. “See you in two years.”

  “You bet. Take care of Cami for me?”

  He frowns like it’s a stupid request, and I give him one last quick hug.

  The institute is in Nebraska. It’s a four-hour drive from home. It’s a miserable drive, the last hour of it on a two-lane highway. Cami and I sit in the backseat, our hands clasped so tightly together our palms start to sweat, but we don’t loosen our grip. Mom and Dad keep glancing back at me in the rearview mirror. They try some idle chitchat, but give up. It seems like there should be a lot to say, under the circumstances, but I doubt anyone is ever chatty on the way to the gallows or the gas chamber, and I think that’s how we all feel—like we’re all about to die in one sense or another. Dad turns on the radio. “If I Die Young” starts playing. He quickly turns it off again, but not before Mom starts crying.

  We ride in silence until we see the place, rising from the earth like a giant tombstone standing in a field of prairie grass and wild cedars. It is a large, gray, windowless structure. And instead of the name of a departed loved one etched on the cement surface, there is a cold, sterile name: THE INSTITUTE FOR CRYONIC SCIENCES.

  43

  I’ve already put on the hospital gown. Now it’s time to pull on the thin cotton scrub bottoms. I’m not naïve. I know the bottoms are to make me feel more comfortable. Once I’m out, they’ll come off. So will the gown, for that matter. I’ll be totally naked, with a tube shoved in every orifice of my body. The doctors will create a few new ones, too. It’s the holes they’re going to drill into my skull that concern me the most. But I can’t think about that.

  I fasten the tie on the pants and put my clothes into a plastic bag so Mom and Dad can take them home. Then I wait for my parents and Cami to come in and say good-bye. But I can’t think about that, either.

  I look around the room. It’s not a hospital room. This place doesn’t deal with live patients. This room, with its desk, a futon, and a round table complete with three chairs, must be a sort of lounge. I can imagine Dr. Bartholomew and the others trying to figure out where to put me. They could have had me change in the bathroom, but that’s not exactly an appropriate place to tell my family good-bye. There were small exam rooms, places to prepare already-dead bodies for the freezing process, but stick me in one of those without a sedative and see how long I stay.

  I hate this. I hate being here, and I hate the buzz that is sending charges of electricity through the air. The staff is so fucking excited. It must be like the first time the Russians sent a man into space after sending dogs. The doctors have never had the chance to freeze a live human being, and I’m giving them that chance. No more freezing dogs or rats or slices of brain.

  The last thing I wanted to be was a lab rat, and now that’s exactly what I feel like.

  But do I have to be? I could put my clothes back on and walk out of here. I could enjoy whatever time I have left. I could skip to the acceptance stage of death, and we could really go to Hawaii. We could.

  There’s a knock on the door, and it opens. Dr. Bartholomew steps in, wearing her doctor’s coat and beige pants. She sees my hand reaching inside the sack where my clothes are, and her face morphs into one of sympathy. God, I hate that expression: the furrowed brows, the pain-filled eyes, the pursed lips. I’ve seen it too many times since Connor died, and she’s ramping it up a notch. And why shouldn’t she, considering what she’s about to do to me?

  “You’re scared,” she says. “I know I would be, if I were you.” She gives a tender smile. “You don’t have to do this. No one’s forcing you. This is your life. Only you can decide. But let me tell you a story before you do.” Dr. Bartholomew pulls a chair out from the table and sits down. “Have you ever heard of Gordon Harrison?”

  I shake my head.

  “He is a very wealthy landowner in Texas—land with abundant sources of oil on it. Mr. Harrison had everything, but five years ago, his wife gave birth to their third child—their first daughter. The little girl was healthy except for her kidneys. They were both deformed, barely functioning at all. Their only hope was an organ transplant, but did you know that eighteen people die every day in this country waiting for transplants, and it doesn’t matter how much money or power you have? You can’t jump to the front of the line. Their precious little girl would have died, but knowing before her birth that the child’s kidneys were deformed, Mr. Harrison contacted me. Another doctor had read about my work growing organs from stem cells. We were able to harvest the needed cells from the umbilical cord, and I grew the child a new kidney. Since the cells came from her cord blood, there was no concern of rejection
. And that little girl started kindergarten a month ago.”

  Dr. Bartholomew gives herself a satisfied smile and a mental pat on the back.

  “You’re wondering how this pertains to you.” She comes to me and wraps her thin, cool fingers around my hands. “I’ve helped two congressmen, a governor, and the family member of a president. My goal is to help all people, regardless of their socioeconomic status, but helping rich, powerful, influential people is what makes my work possible. What I’m trying to tell you is that I have money behind me. I have access to the finest scientists and physicians. If anyone can cure you, if anyone can give you your life back, it’s me.” She squeezes my hands. “You just have to trust me. Can you do that? Can you be astronomically brave?”

  I hate that she resembles her brother. The resemblance isn’t great, especially since in my mental image of him, he was near death. But their eyes are so similar, so dark and small. Still, there is something different in hers—a spark of hope. I have to trust her. I nod.

  She lets go of my hand and starts for the door. “I’ll bring your family in to . . .” She starts to say that my family will come in to tell me good-bye, but she thinks better of it. “I’ll bring your family in to wish you well.”

  She leaves. Minutes later Mom, Dad, and Cami step into the room, or try to. It’s hard. The air itself acts like a wall they’re pressing against, because they don’t want to come in. They don’t want to say good-bye.

  Dad’s arm is wrapped around Mom’s waist. He’s holding her up, keeping her from collapsing on the cold, tile floor. Her eyes aren’t bloodshot with tears. That will come later, but not much later. She’s trying to hold it together for my sake, just like I’m trying to hold it together for theirs. Cami is standing behind them, and while I know she’s trying to be strong too, she hasn’t been quite as successful. Her eyes are puffy and red, and she dabs at them with the sleeve of her sweater.